Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Common Tools: Vocabulary

Stephen King told us to never make our writing pieces "better" by adding fancy words, because it just makes the writing sound confusing. In his examples, the words were too fancy and even if they sounded intelligent, I felt like they were trying too hard. I thought that Kings's piece on vocabulary was really humorous, especially when he was talking about Johnny "pushing"... you know. All his comparisons were amusing, and that fun quality to it helps me remember it. I found I tend to find synonyms to words I am using, though that is usually when I start to repeat the word too much (hah I was going to say "often" after thinking "much," but then again, "often" isn't very complex), so perhaps I should stop doing that. I am guilty of right clicking and looking up synonyms on Word. But then again, then my essay would be really repetitive. I'll probably just not find complex words unless I've repeated it a bajillion time. I think this little excerpt will help my writing a lot because people could understand my writing better and I don't have to go stressing on sounding intelligent.

Monday, October 24, 2011

If I was a crayon...

I personally like the black crayon best. Black is mysterious and makes an awesome contrast when bright colors are used with a black background. You can also outline with it, and it's not actually a color. I'd use that color most if I drew with crayons, but I don't because I much prefer pencils. If I wanted to use myself, I'd be black. But I don't use crayons much. That is why I would be white. No one ever uses white. I wouldn't have to deal with over zealous toddlers holding the crayons too hard and breaking me in half, or mashing my head against the paper... unless I was the toddler. I used white even when it was unnecessary. Now, I feel I have made this discussion garrulous by going on and on about my preference on crayons. I'll stop now. By the way, you missed the day I brought cookies. I had one for you :(

Friday, October 14, 2011

The Uncle Oren Metaphor

I liked the metaphor Stephen King provided; however, I do think he took a little long to tell it to us. I didn't think we needed the exact details of how he chose a screwdriver and how Oren used it. The metaphor comparing a tool box to the wealth of techniques we use to write makes it easier to write whenever since instead of thinking about an assignment as a whole, we can think about the different elements of writing that we bring around with us in our heads. It metaphor helps us realize that writing can be a "divide and conquer" type activities, focusing on the different types of "tools" like grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, substance, literary devices, and other elements used in writing. This passage, along with the others, will affect my reading and writing for the rest of my life.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

If I was the president of the United States...

I would not have America be filled with ubiquitous torture. I was merely thinking about death eaters in class as the first vocabulary word, capitulate, made me think about how they tortured people, making them beg for mercy. From there, I just thought it would be cool to make all the sentences based off of my first one. So no, I do not want to torture people. If I was president, I would do my best to have people's lives be torture free. I have a rail against the treatment of the poor and homeless, so if I was president, I would try to fix the homelessness and poverty problem. There are just too many people living on the streets of cities like NYC. This is one of the reasons why I hate going to the city. It depresses me whenever I walk past a homeless person. Of course, there are a bunch of other things whong with America as well, but it would take a book to write that. See? I'm not a psychotic torturer. 

Friday, October 7, 2011

My Theses


Miss Brill’s loneliness led her to her denial of how friendless and disliked she was, as shown when she convinces herself of her importance in her made up play, when she makes herself out to be a wonderful, well liked actress, and when she doesn't admit to herself that she is hurt by the young couples' comments.

Monday, October 3, 2011

If I could be doing anything right now, it would be...

...doing magic obviously. Who wouldn't want to be able to do things with the flick of a wand, as long as it's all benign magic and not something like torturing animals or causing world-wide panic. That would not be good. Of course, if there was magic, then we may find ourselves in a quagmire if someone live Voldy came up and tried to kill everyone, but I suppose some people could use some more magic to counteract Voldy's extremely non-pacific-chaos-inducing-terror magic.